Richard H. Hughes, IV, Member of the Firm in the Health Care & Life Sciences practice, in the firm’s Washington, DC, office, was quoted in InsideHealthPolicy, in “Federal Judge Punts to Saturday AGs' Call to Restrain DOGE for Appointments Violation,” by Amy Lotven, Jessica Karins. (Read the full version – subscription required.)
Following is an excerpt:
A group of Democratic attorneys general will have to wait at least one more day for a decision on whether Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency will be temporarily restrained from accessing the data systems of federal agencies or making decisions on personnel. The AGs contend the sweeping authority President Donald Trump has given Musk and DOGE without congressional input runs afoul of the constitution's separation of powers, and specifically allege they are violating Congress' authority to establish a new department and vet key appointees. …
Richard Hughes of Epstein Becker Green suggests the Trump administration's decisions and the legal responses are setting up serious constitutional tensions that will have to play out in the courts. Which party succeeds in this case depends on whether Musk is making decisions or if he's following the direction of the president, Hughes says. "How much of a leash is he on . . . that's the fundamental question."
Hughes also believes that while Braidwood and the AGs' case raise the same constitutional question, they're too dissimilar for a decision in one case to affect the other. Braidwood focuses on the constitutionality of a congressionally established body -- the USPSTF -- while the AGs target an individual.
